“They ran a 20th century campaign in the 21st century,” said one Romney bundler, frustrated that the campaign made assumptions about the youth vote and voter intensity that didn’t pan out. “The anger is that they were entrusted to do certain things. It’s not like they were paid a $5,000 retainer to get a few dozen articles in an inside-the-Beltway paper. This is the major leagues.”...

"There were a lot of Republicans who were on calls that the campaign was having led to believe we had shots in Pennsylvania and Minnesota,” one Republican operative supporting Romney said. “I think Republicans are split right now between confused and shocked, and also I think they are wondering did the Romney campaign have numbers we didn’t have.”

In starker terms, the source questioned: “Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?”

117 comments:

I assumed that the Romney campaign knew that they were losing badly and was lying to their supporters and the media. On the other hand, Republicans are almost always dumber than I think they are, and I guess that includes the Romney campaign.

I think its pretty obvious that they (along with all the idiot commenters on this site who were soooooooooo convinced Romney would win--fed by Althouse's obsession with touting any evidence that pointed to Romney's illusory strength) are just not that smart Boldface added.

The following was written in 1792 about the Athenian Democratic Republic of ancient Greece by a Scottish Lawyer and Academic, Alexander Fraser Tytler. My maternal grandmother lived “down the road” from his home a century later in the 1890’s before immigrating to the United States.History does repeat itself…doesn’t it? Welcome to Athens in America.“Nor were the superior classes in the actual enjoyment of a rational liberty and independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending demagogues; and these maintained their influence over their partisans by the most shameful corruption and bribery, of which the means were supplied alone by the plunder of the public money.” Tytler, op. cit., Book 1, Chapter VI -- Political reflections arising from the history of Greece, p. 216, 1792

Isn’t this a wonderful phrase?; “The banners of contending demagogues”. It’s truly ironic we actually title the demagogic banners “Democrat” and “Republican” in what’s supposed to be a democratic republic. I swear to God or Nature we’re as ignorant and misguided as Athenians and will probably end up in the same trash heap of history.The Democrat banner won. The Republican banner lost.Actually “rational liberty and independence” was the loser in, to quote myself, “Athens in America.” The “partisans”, those “bribed” to “servilely” rank themselves under separate banners, truly lost. It’s why I self-identify as a small “l” libertarian and try to vote in defense of “rational liberty and independence.”Citizens of Athens in America, enjoy the presidency of your current factional demagogue-in-chief. You chose him!Shakespeare:Romeo:Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio![Tybalt under Romeo's arm thrusts Mercutio in. Away Tybalt]Mercutio:I am hurt.A plague a' both your houses! I am sped.Is he gone and hath nothing?

Let me summarize the post-mortem, so you don't have to pay attention to it:

The Republican Party must become just like the Democratic Party. Also, to remove every possible hint of racism, the Republican Party must disavow white middle class voters, particularly hetero men, who shouldn't even have representation in a decent political system.

Don't try to appeal to the people who will actually vote for you, i.e., white middle class married people. Taking up their opposition to illegal immigration and the racial and sexual quota system is suicide!

If I were to pay a consultant to analyze the numbers and report back, you can be assured that consultant would be expected to report accurately regardless of the findings, and would never be hired again should the analysis prove faulty. However, it seems clear that the new (R) math is intent on producing rosy numbers never mind reality.

You wouldn't put up with such shenanigans from your stock portfolio analyst, why would you allow it concerning your politics? Or your science.

You aren't suggesting an "opposition party." You've suggesting that the Republicans become Democrats. In the name of tolerance.

At least you're not bitching about some form of bigotry today. You got some of what you wanted. Does that mean you're going to stop bitching for more? Are you going to continue to puff your martyrdom fantasy?

Answer: Giving a spoiled child what he wants only encourages him to whine and bitch for more.

The Republican Party has spent so long ignoring reality (i.e. evolution, climate change, the impact of gay marriage), I guess they figured they would try the same thing with a presidential campaign. How did that work out?

Is this a situation similar to the first debate in that then pundits were attempting to portray Obama having done horribly in order to spin away from Romney having done well? In this case, Romney was running against an incumbent which, according to some Volokh Conspirators, in historically similar situations as to what we have now is usually a losing proposition. Even against the odds it seems to me that Romney ended up very close indeed even with the odd electoral quirk that allows gaps to appear large when they may not be in actual vote count.

I think the Romney campaign was fine. It was one of the most serious we've seen in a long time. It presented the case for him in the best way possible. However, it turns out it's not what the American people want.

The death of the losing party is always predicted after the election. Always, amazingly, turns out to be false. The Republican Party will win another election, the Democrats will be thrown out, and the same BSing will commence on the other side.

I'm an old fart (make that, Old Dawg!). Been through it so many times. Don't get over-excited.

At the national level, the popular vote looks to be within the "margin of cheat".

Is that true in any of the State contests that may have changed things?

(Remember when the Electoral College-vs-popular-vote thing meant that Bush wasn't a legitimate President? This argument isn't as strong, but everyone should notice: the margins were pretty thin on the National-popular-vote level.)

We rail about running a "serious campaign" but the next Republican is going to have to seek exposure on more media. Mix it up.

Go on The Daily Show and be genuine, honest and funny (self-deprecating helps) ... like Rumsfeld.

Chances are, you won't sway too many young voters who watch, but they need to see you as you really are, and not the grandma-killing, baby-eating monster they've heard about. These venues (sadly) are the only opportunities for some voters to see you. Meet the Press is at a 20 year low for ratings. There's a reason it's on when it's on.

Maximize the media — from social to TV to online streaming. Go fully mobile with smart, interesting apps.

I don't think it's rocket science; by now, some of the smoke has cleared. The difference between pollsters was as PPP says - they assumed the same Democratic turnout as 2008, and pollsters like Gallup and Rassmussen assumed something more like 2010. So did every conservative pundit I saw.

No one had first-hand information. The polls get a 9% response rate these days. Everything depended on the D+8 or whatever.

And the Republican guess seemed very reasonable. Democrats were not very excited about their president this time. Why would they turn out in droves? Conservatives were very energized, they would all turn out - "crawl over broken glass to vote".

Why was this wrong? We didn't understand the Democratic GOTV setup. You think they wasted all of their billion dollars on dumb ad spots in Ohio? This was infinitely more effective. It was good in 2008, and they've been building it for four years.

By now they have included pretty much every African-American, every Hispanic, every young person, at least in the swing states. They overwhelmed Republicans on Asian voters, for goodness sakes. They don't need energized voters anymore. They just need them to be willing to go along with what they have organized them to do. A massive voting machine.

I noted with interest the O'Keefe voter fraud video that got the Moran fellow fired a month ago. Moran was a criminal, was willing to advise someone on how to cheat, but he wasn't awesomely interested. He repeated several times on the video: GOTV is the more effective way to do it.

As a conservative, I think it's pretty scary. It amounts to a very sudden 5% shift in demographics, where Registered Voter suddenly equals Likely Voter. You think it won't work in 2014? I'm not so sure. It is now fully operational.

Save your recriminations. Romney was a good candidate. The polls showed just what we would have expected. The vindicated swing state polls showed Obama well ahead before the hurricane, and after the hurricane. All that money on TV ads at the end made no difference: It was far too late. It was aimed at undecided voters, who were actually no longer undecided. They had made their essential decision long before, not in terms of what they really really want, but in terms of agreeing to work with the Democratic GOTV. That was all that was needed.

Romney needed to hang out with characters on stage singing songs like this--

I got the rap patrol on the gat patrolFoes that wanna make sure my casket's closedRap critics that say he's "Money Cash Hoes"I'm from the hood stupid what type of facts are thoseIf you grew up with holes in your zapatosYou'd celebrate the minute you was having doughI'm like fuck critics you can kiss my whole assholeIf you don't like my lyrics you can press fast forwardGot beef with radio if I don't play they showThey don't play my hits well I don't give a shit SORap mags try and use my black assSo advertisers can give em more cash for ads...fuckersI don't know what you take me asor understand the intelligence that Jay-Z hasI'm from rags to riches nigga I ain't dumbI got 99 problems but a bitch ain't oneHit me

I was surprised by the result. The experts now say that the demographics are such that Republicans can't win if the white turnout is less than 76%.....If they say so, but it does seem to me that Democrats represent a shaky coalition. Perhaps some day blacks will catch on that cheap immigrant labor keeps wages in the service industry down, feminists will be become cognizant of the fact that rap music is far more misogynist than evangelical hymns, and gays will recognize that legalization of gay marriage is not the solution to all life's dislocations. But in the meantime. in the spirit of brotherhood, they can all join hands and pin whatever is wrong with their lives on the unfairness of hetero white men who go to church on Sundays. We shall soon see how much better America can be if it is not directed by straight, white men who go to church on Sundays.

News flash! Political consultants not hired by Romney say political consultants hired by Romney were terrible.

So the big reveal here is that black turnout in Ohio was a much bigger pct. of the vote than in '08, and anyone who didn't foresee that is a victim of the RW echo chamber? OK, then, simple question: How many lefties predicted a big increase in black-voter enthusiasm?

The big "error" being ascribed to righties in this article is that black voters and young voters would lack enthusiasm for Obama b/c they cant' find jobs.

OK, we get it. Obama voters are even stupider than we thought. Duly noted.

The idea that the campaigns have special, internal polls that are superior to aggregates of the large number of public polls - the meta polls - is a myth. If you simply took the poll that Ann linked to a few days prior to the election and clicked the button that assigned all states to the candidates regardless of the margin, you got an outcome virtually identical to what happened.

But even as I typed my gloomy prediction, I hesitated - not because I thought it was wrong but because I wondered if spreading pessimism so close to the election was a good idea - and I'm just a lowly blog commenter. Does anticipating a bad outcome help make it come to pass? The Romney campaign had to have gone through a similar calculus, and they decided putting on the game face was the better strategy.

The big surprise in this election was the demographic shift - whites heavily for Romney and all minority groups even more lopsidedly for Obama. I had lots of anecdotal evidence that people were switching to Romney - liberal family members sitting out the election, friends telling me they had lost faith in the president - but guess what? They were all white.

The logical argument that the polls had to be biased given one's personal experience made a kind of sense. My "gut" was dead wrong due to a skewed sample, and the polls were right all along.

Willing to put up millions of dollars, but unwilling to get down into the trenches and find out how the money's being spent? Seems to me a poor investment. Perhaps if these millionaires were more interested in the nuts and bolts of GOTV and turnout, they could have spent their dollars more efficiently. I am, myself, conservative, but I cry no tears for these anonymous whiners.

Evangelicals did turn out for Romney, but not as much as they did for Bush in 2004.

Jewish voters went from 21% to 30%. Progress!

Black voters went from 4% in 2008 to 6% in 2012.

The popular vote was much closer than in 2008, but was depressed on both sides overall.

The supposed enthusiasm gap disappeared by election day ... that is what carried Obama to victory.

Focusing too much on 2010, where Democrats who elected Obama did not require the same level of energy, left the electorate looking more like 2008 than two years ago. I thought it might be blended enough to give Romney a slim victory, but turnout counted more than that.

Sadly, the youth vote still went overwhelmingly to Obama — those who have little prospects in the job market and crushing personal and national debt on their ledger voted again to elect a man who has shown little deference to their plight. However, these unwashed want to absolve voluntary student debt, so let's just say they are not the smartest voters participating.

Despite the design of the electoral college, the country is still in some ways held hostage by the large metropolitan areas when it comes to selecting a President.

2. a campaign cash shortage, post primary, but pre-convention. I don't know why the incumbent can tap general election funds pre-convention. It's not as though several incumbents haven't faced stiff convention fights. Regardless the GOP donors could have defended Romney with super-PACs then. a mistake in hindsight.

3. Obama had 5 years to work on the GOTV fight, and he was supported by the Unions, Media, and entertainment empires.

4. Sandy hurt some

5. The Media again.

6. Suprise that black turn-out was higher this time instead of depressed

a. Obama ran a nasty, interest group campaign with no vision for the next 4 years and no evident plan to solve that Nation's problems (Jobs, Debt, Entitlements, etc) other than taxes and "investments" (e.g. Spending Chinese money)

b. Romney and Ryan had a plan, but it doesn't please everybody, like free stuff does.

The adults lost to the Tooth Fairy.

The Good News, Now we get to learn the Obama plan and Obama is stuck with the problems he created.

I'm not so sure the polls (candidate affinity ones) were the issue rather than voter intensity. 11 million fewer voters in 2012 than 2008. Does anyone recall anyone suggesting prior to Tuesday that voter turnout was week? I kept hearing about record early voting.

What's 11 million? In 2012, a total of 120 million votes were cast. So almost 10% more votes in 2008 than 2012. That percentage is enough to change the popular vote and electoral vote in most of the states.

And while we had fewer voters in 2012, the candidates spent more than ever before on the election. Estimates range from $4 billion to $6 billion in money spent. That's nearly twice what was spent in 2008. Yet both sides had lower turn out.

What also happened was that those white liberals that were disenchanted with Obama and his capitulation to the Republicans regarding the Bush tax cuts, forgave him. We came out to vote for him anyway, because having a Republican President and Congress was unacceptable, due to the severe veer to the right by the Republican Party.

I keep hearing this was a mandate: for social justice, for community organizing, for the old Joe Biden democrats and the new Obama democrats, for changing demographics and a post-racial, more equal, post-modern society made up of people slowly learning how to get along with each other and progressing morally to an undetermined point, some of whom believing that gov't as the only thing uniting them, who want a better planet, who will require a living Constitution, growing the middle class from the middle out if that's what the times require.

You know, kind of what NPR believes.

What I see is a lot of social change being demanded to take place very quickly, much of it through our political process, while that political process is ever more behind the times, bitterly divided, and drawing the zeal of more and more people.

I see rapid economic change, and very shifting sands for the foundations of our economy and an administration uniquely equipped to make us uncompetitive and place onerous burdens upon the populace, I see an opposing political party shut out for 4 more years who likely would have not made it nearly so bad, but still would have been behind it.

I see staggering deficits, a lack of leadership and strategy on foreign policy (and still a complex and dangerous world, and perhaps an overextended empire which will take serious rethinking).

"What also happened was that those white liberals that were disenchanted with Obama and his capitulation to the Republicans regarding the Bush tax cuts, forgave him."

-- Entirely not true; Obama came in with somewhere around eight or nine MILLION fewer votes. Obama ran a small, virulent, angry campaign and convinced enough people not to vote that the low-turnout election favored him. A simple path to victory.

It seems the vote went decisively rightward across the nation, with the possible exception of the "Deep South," except at the top of the ticket.

I think "the race card" was decisive, including "Hispanics," "Asians," etc. The Democrats have somehow managed to make "Hispanic" synonymous with "illegal immigrant," and so convince "Hispanics" who were resident in what is now the United States long before there even was a United States, that Republicans against "illegal immigrants" are against them too.

And the Republican Party has been too stupid and inept to counteract this propaganda.

I think the Romney campaign was fine. It was one of the most serious we've seen in a long time. It presented the case for him in the best way possible. However, it turns out it's not what the American people want.

THIS!

We've been told, for years, that Americans want campaigns on big issues, not "wedge issues".

...except "wedge issues" ALWAYS win. Basically every single time.

The first thing a Republican should do in 2016 is demand a plan on fixing the problems still in existance by the Dem. Put them on the defensive. Mention it's been eight years and they have nothing in mind on fixing anything.

Then hit every possible social issue.

Go to Asians and mention that they get screwed more than anybody else in regards to affirmative action.

Ask parents how nice it is to have their college grads living at home.

Ask the grads how awesome it is to not be able to live the life you wanted.

MikeR, very nice analysis. I agree completely, with the caveats that (a) Romney only lost the popular vote by 2.4% (meaning all he needed was to get >1.2% of the electorate to switch); (b) an incumbent president has a huge advantage; and (c) the media was even more biased than in 2008, which is really quite remarkable achievement.

I'll also add that despite what pundits are saying, it isn't the demographic trend that is hurting Republicans, it's the trend towards making voting as easy and painless as possible. I think Republicans have always known that they were outnumbered. They only held their own because a large % of those who have a natural tendency to vote for Democrats, those voters who are the least informed and least engaged, don't bother. With the advance of technology and a concerted effort by Democrats to foist registration on eligible adults and then effectively push them to the polls on election day, the edge that Republicans held in % turnout has eroded. Unfortunately, a ballot cast by a "broken glass" voter counts the same as one cast by an apathetic one.

The strategy for the future isn't to suppress the turnout of these apathetic, loosely attached voters, but to persuade them that Democratic policies actually hurt them (which I sincerely believe they do). The liberal bias in the media makes this difficult, so perhaps that battle has to be fought first.

Romney wasn't a "severe" conservative, we all knew that, but the rest of the party was and is. And Romney will do what they tell him to do, Romney would not have stuck to his stances, he would've flip flopped his way through his presidency, to the highest bidder.

How is the ending of the war and no more dead Americans in Afghanistan going? How is getting big money out of politics going (reminder: Obama is the one who first bowed out of limiting his spending in 2008?)

You claim to be worried that Romney will not stick to his promises, yet are willing to vote for a man who clearly has walked away from many large promises. You don't care about politicians breaking promises; you just need a convenient excuse.

In starker terms, the source questioned: “Was last week a head fake, or were they just not that smart?”Boldface added.

In their defense, I'd think direction of change is a lot easier to gauge than rate of change.

I'd attribute any over confidence to the belief that for Romney to be in the margin of error of a poll in a toss-up state was to be in the lead because of over sampling of Democrats, given a swing in momentum.

From my limited vantage, it seemed the Romney campaign put too much emphasis on election day activity that produced very few net new votes.

I'm not a GOTV type guy. Never understood it on an analytic level, probably because I've never enjoyed it on a personal level. I think that's more true of people on the right, who, like many here, would rather "gather-ye-rosebuds".

I think that's less true among people who have a direct or perceived self-interest in a public sector, particularly for income.

I suppose that means conservatives tend to exist in smaller, individual cocoons than liberals, who tend to inhabit larger cocoons, which tends to favor the Democrats.

No one cared about closing Gitmo once Obama was elected, yes. Just like no one cared about DADT when Clinton signed it.

Also, the ACA is still fairly unpopular, so that clearly wasn't weighing too heavily on people's minds.

Face it: Obama lies to you, and you like it because the end result is something you can agree with. That's fine; it is politics. But don't pretend that Romney's policy compromises would have been any worse than the many Obama has compromised on.

Hell, just his failure handling the BP Oil Spill and Sandy should tell us his promises of a new federal way of handling disasters should really have us angry.

On cocoons: I think that might be part of it. At the voting place, one guy was on his cell phone, literally going down the list giving all of his friends a call to wake up and come vote for Obama. None of the people with a Republican sample ballot were doing that.

Of course, the other possibility is that, being the Chicago crowd and the ACORN crowd, they just stole it.

GOP turnout was up in OH and Democrat was down, but we supposedly lost.

Fewer people voted for Romney than McCain, knowing the stakes involved?

Andy R. said...

The Republican Party has spent so long ignoring reality (i.e. evolution, climate change, the impact of gay marriage), I guess they figured they would try the same thing with a presidential campaign. How did that work out?

I'm willing to bet a lot more people are against same sex marriage than for it.

As for climate change, that's been proven a crock.

And I have trouble recalling what year the Republican Party came out against evolution. Of course, Hatman doesn't even know what it is, so how would he know?

In Florida, the exit polls showed 49% of voters say the 2010 law should be repealed completely or in part. Forty-three percent said it should be expanded or kept as is. Florida voters also had the opportunity to vote on amending the state constitution to prohibit individuals and businesses from being compelled to participate in any health care system. Exit polls show that vote is very close.

Exit polls in Ohio, show 52% said they think the president's health care reform law should be repealed completely or in part while 42% said it should be expanded or left as is.

There's a similar split in other swing states.

Iowa: 53% for change or repeal and 38% for leaving it or expanding it.

New Hampshire: 50% for change or repeal and 47% for leaving it.

Colorado: 55%-37% for repeal.

Even in the president's home state of Illinois, 49% said they want Obamacare changed or repealed while 47% want it expanded or left as is.

However, a majority of voters in some of the country's most-populous states said they are in favor of keeping the health care reform law as it is or expanding it rather than repealing or changing it.

Those states are California (50%-42% split in favor of expansion), New Jersey (58%-36%), New York (53%-45%), Pennsylvania (51%-46%) and Wisconsin (49%-46%).----------------------------Not as unpopular as some think, in some key states.

"Fewer people voted for Romney than McCain, knowing the stakes involved?"

-- Very likely. Remember all the people talking about taking their ball and going home if their guy or gal didn't win the primary or jump in the race?

Guess what. They did. The Republican party, unlike Team Blue, is terrible at enforcing lock step voting patterns. Dems turned out for Warren, despite her being a liar who faked her ancestry to get ahead. Plenty of Republicans dropped Akin and Mourdock like hot potatoes when they said their stupid thing.

It has nothing to do with being more conservative; it has to do with Republican partisans being partisan within the party. All those people who said they wanted Perry and then when he flamed out said they were looking at third parties? -They did.- The people who said if a True Conservative didn't run, they'd let the Republican party suffer until a sufficient True Conservative ran? They did.

It's such a human thing to gloat and taunt the losers. I can't get too upset, (well, I can and I am, but what's the point?) because I'm sure the same thing would have happened in reverse if Romney had won.

If it were as simple as deciding to appeal to what the voters want Republicans could become Democrat lite. That isn't a winning strategy either. Why vote for the lite version when you already have the high calorie stuff?

This campaign was about as stark a choice as it gets. Vote for the things that built the country for its first 200 or so years or vote for what you want the country to be from now on. It's the tipping point for the progressive agenda that's been building for a long time.

Progressive won.

I'm not at all happy about that and I'm not about to change my ideals and beliefs just because were now a 51/49 country.

If Inga, Andy et al think a few juvenile but understandable tweaks are going to change the minds of conservatives they can think again. We can be defeated, but we don't give up. It's a good old American value to keep on fighting when you're down.

-- It's actually a reasonable theory. We tried to offer two moderate candidates (McCain and Romney), but they were villified as being conservatives who wanted to take blacks back to the 1950s when Democrats oppressed them (I don't get it either, but go with this), etc., etc.

And McCain and Romney couldn't defend themselves; they were center-right; they didn't even understand -why- they were being treated as more conservative than they were. So, they got all the negatives of being far right without exciting the base.

We've tried being a moderate, compromising party. But, the last two presidential cycles showed us that it has nothing to do with compromising; the Democrats ran someone who is far left (for America) and excited his base enough to trounce our base efforts.

That was Rove's big insight into winning in 2000 and 2004; the base wins elections. Obama proved that in 2008 and 2012.

I'm a moderate Republican, especially on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. But on the national and state level? Yeah. I'm accepting that moderate Republicans have had their chance.

There seems to be a dichotomy between choosing Obama and adding more GOP seats to the House that demands explanation. Reid claims Obama re-elected signals the electorate wants his policies to go forward, however logic suggests they would replace the GOP in the House in order to get things moving.

I would not say he has a mandate anymore than Bush did in 2004. Then again, I would like the GOP to give him anything he wants and see if Reid is right. Give it to the people and give it to them hard. Raise taxes, cut back on fossil fuel use, implement a carbon tax. Sometimes you can't tell the kid that the stove is hot and just them touch it to find out for themselves.

It has nothing to do with being more conservative; it has to do with Republican partisans being partisan within the party. All those people who said they wanted Perry and then when he flamed out said they were looking at third parties? -They did.

Perry's flameout was self-inflicted (and I supported Perry initially), so I just can't see it.

- The people who said if a True Conservative didn't run, they'd let the Republican party suffer until a sufficient True Conservative ran? They did.

I didn't hear that much of that.

Even Boortz was going all-in for Romney.

machine said...

Of course, the other possibility is that, being the Chicago crowd and the ACORN crowd, they just stole it.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..

Thank you for proving my point.

As for climate change, that's been proven a crock.

hahahahahaha...keep it up--2016 will hurt too...but not as bad as this one.

wyo sis said: If Inga, Andy et al think a few juvenile but understandable tweaks are going to change the minds of conservatives they can think again. We can be defeated, but we don't give up. It's a good old American value to keep on fighting when you're down.

What also happened was that those white liberals that were disenchanted with Obama and his capitulation to the Republicans regarding the Bush tax cuts, forgave him. We came out to vote for him anyway, because having a Republican President and Congress was unacceptable, due to the severe veer to the right by the Republican Party.

Inga,So you lied when you said you couldn't support Obama and would vote for Jill Stein, huh?

Principle apparently means nothing when compared to holding on to power. Which is priority #1 of liberals, so I guess you were just polishing your bona fides.

The Republican Party has spent so long ignoring reality (i.e. evolution, climate change, the impact of gay marriage), I guess they figured they would try the same thing with a presidential campaign. How did that work out?

Andy, if that were remotely true, why did the Obama campaign also ignore those same issues.

Obama never mentioned evolution or climate change, and didn't talk about gay marriage all that much, either.

So I guess your secular savior decided those were losing issues to campaign on.

Very clever. I think people ought to make the best of it as Farmer suggested. Not by taking the government mooch jobs, but by doing their own thing, and perhaps spending more time on their personal, non economic, development that is harder for Democrats to tax.

Fix up your house with you own labor. Forget about the concept of specialization. Read a book.

Dante said... You have to deal with the consequences of ObamaNation, for good or ill.

You have to care enough about the country itself, made up of the people who come after you, for this to matter. A fair number of the people voting for goodies today will be dead when the bill is due. Obviously Dems care about the now and not the future or they wouldn't be making these choices.

Not only are we 16 trillion in immediate debt, we have as much as 100 trillion in unfunded liabilites for social security and medicare, future expenses for people whose related tax income we've already spent. Rather than even attempt to deal with this disaster in waiting Democrats are competing with each other to see who can come up with the most additional spending.

And when Bush tried to address the issue in a bipartisan way he was immediately demonized. Remember that when the children next try to pose as adults or claim Republicans are obstructionist.

What's most interesting about the Obama campaign GOTV operation is they didn't share it with other Democrats in 2010 or with Wisconsin in 2012. Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin elected a Republican governor and a Republican legislature in 2010.

Why didn't Obama lend the keys to his GOTV operation in the Wisconsin recall?

The new D coalition is an Obama coalition. Hillary or Andrew Cuomo aren't going to get the number of enthusiastic campaign workers, both paid and volunteer, that Obama got. And blacks aren't going to flood the polls for either of them.

Regardless of what the Romney campaign (and the RNC) thinks I believe the following happened:

1. Women and especially younger women actually believed electing Romney would somehow limit their reproductive choices (From personal experience they cannot explain how, but they're not taking any chances). I attribute that to my esteemed Senate candate Mr. Akin (it is God's will that I should lose) and Mr. Mourdoch.

2. In coal country (Ohio, PA), traditional Democrats may have stayed home rather than vote for Romney.

3. Young people in general (under 30) have a truly difficult time voting for a 65 year old white man who has never slept with a woman other than his wife. He's even classier than their fathers - they just cannot relate to someone that traditional.

4. Young people generally truly resent the baby boom. (Except when they need us to "help us out." As my daughter-in-law says, "That's what parents are for." So we are the bank - and if we disagree, then Obama is the bank.

A meaningful portion of retired persons actually believe electing Romney would somehow mean their Medicare ans Social Security would be endangered. They can't explain how, but they aren't taking the risk.

Inga, It does seem as if you are trying to change minds, but doing it ineptly. Why keep nagging and nagging otherwise?The other possibility...that you're just trying to be an annoying twit is less flattering.

Now that 2 consecutive campaigns where the Republican candidate craps on GW Bush have failed, can we now perhaps reexamine what 43 did right, how he, his positions and his campaign compared with those of the losers McCain and Romney, and what he has done right that can be studied, emulated and built upon in future?

How about a simpler explanation? The liberals who didn't like Obama couldn't bring themselves to vote against the black man.

I think this cuts both ways; Mia Love and Allen West both got a tremendous boost from being black Republicans. Had they been white, they would have lost in landslides. (West because he's an asshole and Love because her main campaign point was that she wasn't an extremely moderate democrat.)

Nichevom, how about if the GOP puts forward a candidate who doesn't come off as a slightly crazy opportunist or like he has a metal rod shoved up his butt?

Like it or not, Romney comes off as a robot and people don't want a robot for president. Gore and Kerry had a similar problem, though were also less likeable. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Obama all come off as likeable--they're the neighbors you figure you'd enjoy having a barbecue with. (Romney comes off as that guy not invited because everyone's afraid he'll pontificate about the evils of drinking or at least make a big show of not drinking.)

Nixon is one of the few obvious assholes to be elected. (Ford came off as a goof and Carter as a scold.)

The new D coalition is an Obama coalition. Hillary or Andrew Cuomo aren't going to get the number of enthusiastic campaign workers, both paid and volunteer, that Obama got. And blacks aren't going to flood the polls for either of them.

"So the big reveal here is that black turnout in Ohio was a much bigger pct. of the vote than in '08, and anyone who didn't foresee that is a victim of the RW echo chamber? OK, then, simple question: How many lefties predicted a big increase in black-voter enthusiasm?"

- Although you're not really getting your facts straight about "the big reveal" -for one thing, there WAS no "big reveal" for those of us who live in the reality-based, fact-checked world- there were PLENTY of people who accurately predicted what would happen in this election. At the top of that heap was, of course, Nate Silver. You remember him: he was the guy who was vilified by the Right and was accused of pimping falsehoods for the Left, when in REALITY he was just using that math and science stuff. Of course, the Right no longer needs math and science, because Jesus.

It wasn't just a higher turnout among African-American voters that won the election for Obama. I was high turnout by Hispanics, by gays, by women, and -GASP!- by hetero white men (of which I am one).

The Faustian bargain that the Republican party made with Evangelicals decades ago is now at the root of the party's implosion. Don't fool yourself for a minute that his is just the typical pendulum-swing between Dems and Repubs. The Repubs now have a fundamental problem, as their base is wedded to a set of socially conservative ideals that are anathema to the majority off Americans. The right can piss and moan all it likes about "makers vs. takers" and "American values" and "Socialism" and all the other buzzwords that have dominated what passes for political discourse in the right-wing echo chamber, but the REALITY of the situation is that they can't turn back the clock on abortion, God-given rape babies, forcing gays into the closet, Hispanics and African-Americans who dare to vote, etc.

The truth is that the Republican party has nowhere to go but down. There's no point in moving to the center, as their base will abandon them. And there's no point in tacking to the right, as the results will be what we just saw in this past election. The party decided long ago to sell its soul to get the Evangelical vote, never imagining the the country's demographics could or would shift so greatly.

It's a shame, too, because I happen to believe that we need a party that ACTUALLY adhere's to a platform of fiscal responsibility. The problem, of course, is that not only have the Repubs sold out for the Christian vote, they also long ago abandoned any pretense of being fiscally responsible.